


@theteenbrigade

by mothwrites



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Hero Worship, Hulk family, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Social Media, Teen Brigade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4660908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter sighed and came over to pat him gently. “There, there. It’s okay. People are stupid.”<br/>“People are so stupid,” Rick groaned through the wood of the desk. The actual desk, which he’d saved up for weeks for and bought from IKEA, because an office isn’t an office if you don’t have a desk. The desk that his face was mashed into in exasperation because people were stupid and didn’t recognise superheroes when they danced in front of you and were also bright green and the size of a small house. </p>
<p>(My take on Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade in the MCU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	@theteenbrigade

**Author's Note:**

> Rick Jones is the heart and soul of the Marvel universe and anyone who thinks otherwise can literally fight me. (Kidding. Sort of.) 
> 
> Basically I wanted to see what would happen if I put Rick Jones in the MCU, and, well, this happened. Teen Brigade/Hulk family fans will be able to spot some cameos I had fun with, otherwise this is totally accessible to anyone, regardless of whether you've ever read anything with Rick in or not. All you need to know is A: Rick Jones was the kid that Bruce saved when the gamma bomb went off and turned him into Hulk, and B: the Teen Brigade were a group of teens led by Rick who campaigned on behalf of Hulk and other superheroes, and also got involved in superhero battles and the ensuing clean-up by organising themselves through amateur radio sets, which is the coolest thing ever. (I love that idea, but I wanted to update the story a bit, so I had some fun experimenting with writing social media and podcasts instead.)
> 
> Last thing; my headcanons for Bruce's childhood post-mother's-death and also Rick's childhood are a little skewed due to reading several different origin stories and watching that weird Eric Bana movie too many times. Like, I know he's from Ohio, and I know in most versions of canon he lived with his aunt instead of going to a children's home, but hey. Ssh. Enjoy.

It was another day in the office for Rick Jones, twenty one year-old amateur musician and leader of the Teen Brigade. His unofficial “office” was in one of the middle floors of a mostly-abandoned building right in the heart of the city. What had once been prime real estate and the workplace of bankers and greedy government officials had fallen, (literally,) victim to the 2012 battle; the monsters who swam out of the sky, and the Hulk. The Teen Brigade hadn’t blamed the Hulk, though, and never would. He was the first hero to be spray painted on the front of the building, and Rick took pride in that. He was the reason their organisation existed, after all.

_4 years earlier_

Rick was pretty sure that the big guy was the _last_ person who’d want to see him right now, but he was still unable to tear himself from his spot in the middle of the street. He wasn’t alone in his fear; but he was pretty sure he was the only person in the district who was more terrified of the mild-mannered scientist behind the Hulk than the monster himself. And if the big guy saw him _now-_ Rick willed himself to move, but his feet remained firmly planted to the ground. Around him, rubble was flying through the air and tanks were rolling up the street. Rick, as the budding musician he hoped he was, took a moment to lament the fact that if he didn’t move _now,_ his last words were going to be nothing more beautiful than, “fuck, oh _fuck.”_ He still had time to run.

And then, miracle of miracles: Betty freaking Ross walked on stage. And if Rick was scared of the big guy, it was nothing compared to how he felt when he looked at her face. She blinked through tears and reached out a hand to Hulk. In the midst of sirens, falling buildings, the army and police and god knows who else, the two of them managed to create their own little world, if only for a moment. Rick hadn’t been brought up to be polite, but he knew enough to understand when he was intruding. Neither of them would want to see _him,_ of all people, now.

He finally willed his feet to move, and, gratefully, fled.

There had already been a tent set up for disaster relief, and before he could process what was happening, a woman stopped him and brought him inside. It took him another five minutes in his state of shock to realise that at some point in the night, a piece of rubble had struck him and the right side of his head had turned into sticky clumps of blood-soaked hair, dripping down onto his neck and denim jacket. His guitar was fine, and for that Rick almost cried. The woman’s name was Amanda.

“What’s your parents’ number, honey?” She asked after putting on a bandage. There was a pile of bloodied wipes on the camping table next to him and he was doing his best not to look at it. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the only person he could have ever considered as a parent was the reason she was out here in the middle of the night, patching up kids and going through emergency medical supplies like they were going out of fashion. So he lied, said he was just a tourist on a gap year, and she didn’t believe him, but that was okay too.

“Can I help?” He asked, after the urge to cry had subsided and the lump in his throat had gone down somewhat. “I don’t have any like, first aid training, but I’m good with kids. If you need that. And I can run around and get stuff, and, you know, find people. If you need me.”

She gave him a look that was so kind he struggled not to cry again. “You can help by sitting still here and not falling asleep, okay? I don’t even want to know how many concussions you have.”

“I’m okay,” he protested. “Cute nurse patched me up.”

Amanda laughed at him and went to ruffle his hair, and then thought better of it. “You’re sweet, but I’m not a nurse. I just did a first aid course once.” She warned him once again to keep still and stay put, and then moved off to tend to a young couple who had come in with what looked like, among several other injuries, some severe burns. The supplies table near him was on its last few emergency boxes.

Rick thought for a moment, and then dug out his phone.

 

**@radrickjones:** disaster relief tent in #harlem needs med supplies and volunteers URGENTLY. water, bandages, w/e you can get or spare. big blue tent, can’t miss it.

**@radrickjones:** #hulk #harlem need people w/ first aid training in city centre. civilians still buried under rubble and we’re running out of supplies. report 2 big blue tent

 

Rick didn’t know Harlem well enough to give any kind of address to whoever might be willing to help. He’d only been here a few days himself while travelling around the state, doing service jobs and odd gigs and busking to get by. He’d liked Harlem best, though, and if he could repay it in any way, tonight was where he’d start.

It took twenty minutes for the first volunteers to show up. Two kids younger than himself, armed with boxes and a pile of blankets that almost obscured them from view. “Where do you want these?” they asked a flustered Amanda, who hugged them both and directed them over to the supplies table near Rick.

“Thanks, guys,” he grinned at them. “Did you get the tweet, or?”

“And retweeted it,” one of them promised him. “There’s a bunch of people collecting stuff right now. Was that you?”

He nodded, and stuck out the hand that was the least grimy. “Rick Jones, at your service. Good Amanda over there won’t let me leave this chair yet, so.”

“Mike,” said the boy. “And this is my sister, Kasey.”

“Hi,” she waved. Both of them were dressed in practical clothes and boots. “What do we do next?”

“Uh-“Rick stopped, and realised he might have accidentally put himself in charge of a relief volunteer team. Which wasn’t a bad thing, per say, but- “uh-“

He was saved by a man in a firefighter’s uniform who ran in and called for volunteers to help shift what sounded like half a building off some civilians in Oak Street. “We do that,” he answered, relieved. The siblings nodded, and as he got up to follow them, Amanda pushed him back down with a gentle, but firm hand.

“Not you,” she said. “Probable concussion, remember?”

“But-“

“Nope,” she interrupted. “No way. You stay here and keep on that phone if you want to help, all right? Get volunteers where they need to be. Make us a twitter,” she added, half-joking as she moved away to tend to a new patient.

Rick watched the siblings leave with a few other volunteers, and slumped back down on his seat. He had 60% phone battery and the night was still pretty young.

 

**@radrickjones:** follow @harlemvolunteers for updates on how you can help in #harlem #harlemdisaster. tweet us if you need help, tweet if you can help. we got this.

**@harlemvolunteers:** BUILDING COLLAPSED IN OAK STREET. NEED VOLUNTEERS TO DIG PEOPLE OUT ASAP.

**@buddyboy:** @harlemvolunteers bunch of us are on it. want us to go straight there or report to you first?

**@harlemvolunteers:** @buddyboy go straight to oak street, then come back to us if you’re able. thanks, pal!

 

Slowly but surely, volunteers started to stream in. As soon as they came in they asked for Rick, or “the twitter guy”, he sent them to locations that had been tweeted in, and did his best to help with the patients that kept coming in. Amanda had reluctantly let him get up and once she was sure he wasn’t going to pass out, gave him some minor first-aiding to do. There were also a bunch of kids sat together, waiting for their parents, (and God, he hoped they weren’t waiting for nothing.) There was a quiet lull around 1am, and that was when Amanda remembered Rick’s guitar. The kids were too keyed up to sleep and some of them had started trailing him around like lost puppies, so she grabbed it, sat them in a group, and asked him to play something they could all sing along to.

Sing-alongs were generally not Rick’s style. Little kids, however, were something Rick knew like the back of his hand. He had a sudden pang of homesickness for the kids he’d left behind in the children’s home back in New Mexico, shrugged it off, and got to work.

 

**@KCritter:** teenagers are “lazy” and “self obsessed”… 90% of the volunteers in #harlem tonight were organised through teens on twitter. incredible ppl out there w/ @harlemvolunteers

**@harlemvolunteers:** @KCritter and harlem’s teen brigade have done radical work tonight. honoured to have met and worked with them

**@buddyboy:** @KCritter @harlemvolunteers #teenbrigade rocks. make it a hashtag. we’ll be there the next time monsters decide to rip up our city!

**@harlemvolunteers:** we all saw that #hulk was protecting civilians from the other guy tonight. #teenbrigade is cleaning up the military’s messes. did they stay and help us? nope. #harlem

 

_present day_

 

Wednesdays were the days Rick recorded the Teen Brigade podcast, so of course, Wednesdays were the days most people turned up to talk to him. Although it was originally supposed to be a secret, it was common knowledge where the Teen Brigade headquarters were now and it wasn’t unusual to see any number of people, or even reporters, stop by to see what was going on. They had beanbags and snacks for kids with nowhere else to go, as well as a stockpile of medical supplies and blankets for whenever there was an emergency in the city. Technically they were squatters, but after the last few times the Teen Brigade had helped clear up after an Avengers battle Rick had seen Tony Stark talking to someone about where they were based, and had a sneaking suspicion that he’d bought the place so they wouldn’t get kicked out. They’d been there for almost a year now with no attention from the authorities and he was grateful as all hell. He loved the place. Loved it even more now they were decorating; today Parker was back, a sweet, shy 17 year old who was painting a mural over a projection of some of the photos he’d taken of the Avengers in their last fight. Rick liked Peter. He was one of the first to answer the Teen Brigade’s call on twitter back when the Battle of New York, as it was now known, and always turned up with food from his aunt at home. It had been a blow to all of them when Peter’s uncle died, and as much as they’d all tried to help, he’d grown distant. They didn’t see as much of him anymore.

“Hey, kid,” Rick greeted him as he sat down. “That looks totally sweet, by the way.”

Peter nodded in shy acknowledgement at him. “Thanks. It’s just tracing, though.”

“Yeah, but you took the pictures.” Rick studied it. “No Spider-Man?”

“He’s hard to shoot,” Peter replied, and went back to painting. _Funny_ , Rick thought. Everyone knew Peter was the only person who _could_ get pictures of Spider-Man. “What’s the podcast about today?”

“Hydra,” Rick sighed. “It’s gonna be Hydra for a while, I think. Way too much information to sift through. And the current debate- _should_ we be reading it? Don’t superheroes deserve privacy? Is it right that Black Widow is sitting in court right now? Or shouldn’t we, as a social media organisation at heart, be supporting freedom of information above all things?”

“Nice,” Peter replied. “I like it. You’ve got your radio voice on already.”

“Do I?” Rick chuckled. “I can’t even tell, anymore. It’s been like, four years now.”

“You’re not even a teen, you impostor. Hey, uh- don’t go on the YouTube page.”

“What? Why?”

“Just trust me.”

“I’m going on the YouTube page.”

“No, dude-“

“What the _fuck._ ”

Peter sighed and came over to pat him gently. “There, there. It’s okay. People are stupid.”

“ _People are so stupid_ ,” Rick groaned through the wood of the desk. The actual desk, which he’d saved up for weeks for and bought from IKEA, because an office isn’t an office if you don’t have a desk. The desk that his face was mashed into in exasperation because people were _stupid_ and didn’t recognise superheroes when they danced in front of you and were also bright green and the size of a small house.

Peter tactfully closed the anti-Hulk video that had been posted on their YouTube page. “It’s not a big deal, man. You do enough.”

Rick lifted his head up from the desk. “It _is_ a big deal. He doesn’t deserve to put up with shit on a daily basis like this.” He’d understood the Hulk hate in Harlem, and after Harlem. He’d almost understood it after the first battle, where people were angry and confused and just wanted to hate something; but there had been Actual Monsters flying through the sky and Hulk was the guy who ripped them apart. Hulk was the guy who rescued that building full of people from a giant space whale and saved Iron Man from breaking into a million pieces on the sidewalk. Hulk was _good._

“To be fair,” Peter pointed out, having gone back to the mural, “he’s not really the one dealing with it. You are.”

Bruce, unlike the majority of the other Avengers, stayed well out of the public eye, let alone social media. He probably wasn’t even aware of Rick’s one-man pro-Hulk crusade, and that was how Rick liked it.

 

_2 years earlier_

**@ironfan:** @teenbrigade are you in new york right now? have a feeling we’re going to need you!

**@teenbrigade:** hang tight, #teenbrigade, we’re waiting to be told the coast is clear. grab your first aid kits and your friends. gonna be a LONG night. we’ll have a big red tent ready and waiting

**@teenbrigade:** we’re setting up emergency power outlets with shops and cafes who weren’t hit too bad. paramedics are already on the scene!

**@midtownbreakingnews:** The #teenbrigade from the Harlem disaster of 2 years ago are first volunteers spotted in the aftermath of #theavengers battle.

**@midtownbreakingnews:** @teenbrigade, how can people help?

**@midtownbreakingnews** : RT @teenbrigade: we’re setting up relief tents (they’re big + red) and sending out search teams for casualties. if you can bring med supplies, water, power, helping hands- come find us.

**@midtownbreakingnews:** RT @teenbrigade: we also have gofundme.com/teenbrigade for buying supplies, transport, tents, etc. thanks for asking!

**@teenbrigade:** captain america came to help us! would it be cool to ask captain america for a selfie? would captain america know what a selfie is?

**@teenbrigade:** [PICTURE] captain america totally knows what a selfie is. and is also bringing in a ton more volunteers. we salute you, cap!

 

“Take a break,” Captain America, ( _Steve,_ Rick thought giddily,) said- or possibly ordered? He wasn’t sure. He was still in shock, honestly. Steve tossed him a water bottle from the crates that had been donated by a local supermarket, and Rick downed half of it in one. He was so glad he’d invested in tents.

“Thanks. But I’m okay.” Between the combined forces of the Teen Brigade, volunteers from all over the city, and the official relief services, they’d managed to clear nearly half the affected streets. The casualties hadn’t been nearly as bad as Rick feared, going on his previous experience with superhero battles; (and seriously, what was his _life_ now that sentence was perfectly accurate?)

“Take a break,” Steve said again, in a tone that reminded him of Amanda from Harlem. Gentle, but firm. No-nonsense. Rick sat down on one of the makeshift beds in the relief tent and let out a long, exhausted sigh. It was nearing midnight.

“Five minutes,” he acquiesced. “I still can’t believe you came to help. That _never_ happens. Not that, like, I mind. That’s not why we do it. But-“

“It’s okay,” Steve cut him off before he could ramble any further. “I’m glad to help. The others would be here too, but some are injured, Banner doesn’t look like he’s going to wake up for _days-_ “

“Wait,” Rick put up a hand. “Bruce?” Obviously he knew Hulk was there, had seen him help save the city, but on some level it hadn’t registered that _Bruce_ was there as well. That Steve might have met him the way Rick had met him; as a considerably smaller human full of sarcasm and gentle smiles and raw compassion.

“You know him?” Steve asked, surprise evident on his face.

“Uh. Sort of. I met him once, for like, ten minutes. No big.” Rick could now cross “lying to Captain America” off the surreal bingo card that was his life.

“Huh. Well, he’s okay. Just sleeping it all off.”

Rick _itched_ to ask more, but stopped himself. Steve might tell Bruce about it, and that was the last thing he wanted. “Cool. Rad. Awesome. I’m glad you’re all, uh, fine and everything.”

Steve smiled at him like he was the weirdest kid in kindergarten and Steve was the young, hopeful teaching assistant. “So you run this whole operation?”

“The Teen Brigade? Yeah. Hard to believe, I know. Except I don’t really _run_ it, I just run the Twitter and talk to people, and-“

“Don’t listen to him,” Kasey yelled from the back of the tent where she’d been sorting out donations. “He runs the whole thing. He started it back in Harlem.”

“I heard,” Steve agreed. “And I heard you made an appearance at the Stark Expo when things uh, went wrong?”

Rick nodded. “That was only a little thing, though. Ten of us, maybe. Stark’s people were pretty well organised.”

“But you guys are always first on the scene, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rick replied. “We try to be, anyway. Without getting in the way of the police or anything, but they don’t really mind us.”

“And you do it all on… Twitter? I know what Twitter is, don’t worry. Been learning about the world since I, uh, got back.”

Rick considered asking Captain America if there was an official Captain America Twitter account, and then thought better of it. Baby steps. “Twitter,” he confirmed. “Back in Harlem I couldn’t go out and help because I got hit on the head and had to stay put, right? So I started tweeting about the medical tent I was in asking for people to bring them more supplies, because I needed to do _something_. And it started there. It’s just a great way of organising people fast.”

“So you started with Bruce,” Steve said, and _crap,_ he saw right through him.

Rick flashed him a smile. “I started where I was needed. Kasey?” She was waving for his attention.

“The guys in charge say there’s no more injured and we should settle down for the night, come back in the morning for clean-up if we want.”

“Okay, I’ll start sending people home.” Rick stood up with a stretch and a loud yawn. “Thanks for everything, Cap. It’s been an honour.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Steve promised. “You two get some rest, you hear?”

“Yes, Captain,” they responded in chorus, and then giggled like schoolkids. Rick was exhausted. Kasey, by the look of her, was also exhausted, but she volunteered to do the rounds while he went home and he loved her for it. With his remaining few minutes of power, he sent out some good night tweets and headed for bed, all the while thinking of what Bruce was doing right that moment, a few blocks away from him.

 

**@teenbrigade:** cannot believe the amazing-ness of our volunteers tonight. special shout-out to teen brigade regulars @buddyboy, @KCritter, @marmstrong, (1)

**@teenbrigade:** new kids like peter, billie, ted, (send me your usernames!) and, once again, CAPTAIN AMERICA. couldn’t make this up. clean up starts tomorrow morning, bring ur brooms (2)

**@teenbrigade:** this is rick jones checking out for the night. sleep well, new york. (3)

 

Rick woke up to find over ten thousand dollars in the Teen Brigade’s GoFundMe account.

He called Kasey.

“K?”

Kasey did not sound happy to be woken up.

“ _What?_ ”

“K, there’s over ten thousand dollars in our GoFundMe account.”

Rick got put on hold. A minute passed, and then;

“Rick, there’s over ten thousand dollars in our GoFundMe account. What _happened?_ ”

“Midtown News retweeted us, remember? But I didn’t think- _Jesus._ ” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the laptop. “I can’t be in charge of ten thousand dollars! I’m nineteen!”

“Calm down,” Kasey instructed. “This is awesome. Think of all the tents we can buy. We could get like, an actual marquee, that would fit more than ten people in. And a shit-ton of supplies. And Teen Brigade t-shirts!”

“We are not getting Teen Brigade t-shirts and we do not need a marquee. Right. Okay. Who are the actual charities helping out in this? Fuck. Come over. Bring Mike.”

“Yes, boss.” Kasey yawned, hung up, and left Rick alone with his laptop. It took them half an hour to make their way to his flat, and in that time he managed to wash, (the water was down,) eat something resembling breakfast, and update the twitter with a million thank-you’s, more shout-outs, and a notice that the GoFundMe account was temporarily frozen, _“because Rick is overwhelmed and bad at maths.”_

“We’ve got a plan,” Mike informed him as they trooped in to the flat. Kasey hugged him and pressed a steaming paper cup of coffee into his hands. “Don’t worry.”

“What’s your plan?” Rick asked, inhaling coffee steam gratefully. “Because I have _no_ idea.”

“We did some googling on the way over and found five verified, decent charities that are actively helping clean-up and stuff. So we should donate a thousand each to them.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. “And the other _five thousand_?”

“We keep a thousand back to stock up on supplies and have some in reserve for the next near-apocalypse,” Kasey continued, “and then do some actual charity work ourselves. Find real people and local businesses who were affected the most and help them rebuild.”

“That… sounds doable, actually.” Rick started to calm down. This was feasible. This was _good._ “Jesus, can we just donate it all to the Midtown paramedics? They were _ridiculously_ goodlast night. We’d have been screwed without them.”

“Hey, maybe we should use some of it to get us some actual first aid training.”

“Oh shit, yeah.”

_present day_

 

“This is Rick Jones from the Teen Brigade, signing off.”

Rick clicked off the microphone and fell back into the desk chair. He’d send the raw file to Teddy, who’d chop it up and make it sound good, then he’d send it out as a podcast. The Teen Brigade were getting almost as well known for their radio station as they were for their volunteer efforts; they were getting listeners from all over the globe at this point. They’d even managed to put in a few interviews- not with the Avengers, but he’d had ten minutes with Ms Marvel in New Jersey who talked to him about the volunteers she’d worked with before _and_ who out of the Avengers she reckoned were dating. It was almost as good as the time Spider-Man gave him a high five. (That hadn’t come out so well on radio, but he’d talked about it a _lot_.)

It had gotten dark outside. Peter had finished a while back and gone home to his aunt. One of the kids who lived on the streets nearby, a witty, green-haired girl, had come in for some food and a nap, but had left now too. Rick packed up his laptop, turned off the lights, reconsidered, turned on the lamp for anyone who needed it, and left the building.

It wasn’t so dark outside that one couldn’t admire the graffiti artwork on the walls of the building, and as Rick left, he bumped into someone doing just that. “Sorry, man.” He made to walk past, and then a hand caught his arm. Rick looked up into the face of Bruce Banner.

“Hey, kid.” Bruce looked so much older, and so tired, but his smile was still the same. “Can we talk?”

_8 years earlier_

 

“Hey, kid.”

Rick looked up from where he’d been spray painting a fucking _masterpiece,_ thank you very much, onto the old fence that separated the old park and cemetery from the street. He braced himself for a lecture from one of the local cops or a teacher but instead looked up to see a young guy, maybe a college student, wearing an honest-to-god white coat and glasses.

“ _What?_ ” he asked, because what could this guy want anyway?

“Is that meant to be the Roswell Group Home?” the guy asked, tracing the edges of the paint-building with its paint-asteroid and paint-flames with intense curiosity. “It’s very well done.”

“It’s a shithole,” Rick replied, fascinated. “How come you knew what it was?”

“I used to live there,” the man replied, with a rueful smile- and oh yeah, Rick knew _that_ expression. That _Roswell Group Home is the worst fucking place on earth, but it’s the only place that would take me_ expression.

“Hey, you survived,” he said in return, because what else was there to say? Besides, he was impressed. Genuinely. “Why’re you back?”

“My job sent me here. I’m one of the scientists out in the desert.” The guy pulled on his bleach-white lapels. “I don’t wear this for fun. What’s your name?”

“Rick.”

“Hi, Rick. I’m Bruce.”

Then it all clicked. “Banner? You’re Bruce Banner?”

“Uh-oh,” Bruce bit his lip, but he was still smiling at him. “Teenagers know who I am? That’s worrying.”

“No, it’s just-“ sure, some people did still talk about crazy Brian Banner who lived in the maximum security prison upstate, and sometimes people in church did mention beautiful Rebecca Banner and how they’d never found a pianist good enough to replace her, but that wasn’t what he meant, he meant- “you carved your name into my windowsill.”

“Oh.” Bruce laughed. “I thought- ah, that’s funny. I’d forgotten about that.  You live in my room? How long for?”

“Three years. Moved in when I was 10.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and sounded sincere, because he _knew._ He of all people knew, and Rick felt those familiar hackles on his neck start to quiet down. He could trust this guy.

“What are you guys doing in the desert?”

“If I told you that-“

“What, you’d have to kill me?”

“No,” Bruce laughed again. “I’d just get into a lot of trouble. Man, this is surreal. I have to go back in a minute. I’m on a break.” He dug out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket, and lit one up. “Don’t let me stop you painting.”

“You’re not gonna share?” Rick asked, half-joking. Bruce sized him up, then drew out another stick and passed it over, but didn’t offer his lighter.

“Wait until you’re 16, at least. Promise me.”

“Okay,” he promised, and didn’t quite know why. He put it in the pocket of his denim jacket. Rick watched Bruce take a long drag and then turn his face up to the sun with his eyes closed.

“Never thought I’d be back here,” he murmured. A few moments passed and he said nothing more. Rick momentarily wondered if he was a mirage brought on by the heat, and then Bruce opened his eyes and looked at him like he was surprised to still see him there.

“I have to get back,” he sighed. “It was nice meeting you, Rick. Paint in some more flames for me.” He stubbed out his cigarette, and made to leave.

“Wait-“Rick said, feeling foolish.

Bruce stopped. “Yes?”

“Uh- can I say hi? If I see you again?”

He smiled, like he was genuinely pleased that some boring, teenage kid wanted to talk to him. “Of course you can. We’re here for another week or so.” He reached out and gave Rick a quick hair-ruffle, like he couldn’t help himself. “Come say hi whenever you like.”

“Okay,” Rick practically whispered, and watched him leave. He stood still for a few moments as Bruce turned the corner, and then proceeded to paint the _sickest_ flames around the group home.

It was another two days before he saw him again. Bruce wasn’t in the lab coat any more, but a t-shirt and jeans, and he was holding hands with a pretty, long-haired woman who was much taller than him. Rick saw them walk past the post office and the little array of shops and he wasn’t going to say hi, but then the woman saw him staring and nudged Bruce who waved him over with a smile.

“Hey, kid.” He seemed _delighted._ “Betty, this is Rick. He’s the kid who lives in my old room.”

Betty bent down, making Rick feel about two feet tall, and shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Bruce.”

“Nice to meet you too,” he managed to say.

“I wanted to come say hi before,” Bruce said breezily, “but apparently Roswell Group Home doesn’t actually take too kindly to their alumni coming back to pay a visit. Sorry about that.”

“We were just going home,” Betty explained, and Rick readied himself to say goodbye and let them be. “Would you like to come for dinner?”

“It’s my turn to cook,” Bruce added. “So it’s just, like, pasta. But decent pasta, I promise. I’ll bring you back in time for curfew. Is it still seven?”

“They don’t really care,” Rick said. Bruce nodded at him like he _knew_ , which Rick supposed he did. “Can I? Really?”

“Sure. Come on, we’re only a few minutes away.”

Rick grabbed his skateboard and held it under his arm, and followed them. They took care to include him in their conversation, something adults had never done before, and Betty laughed when Rick tried to ask _her_ what the scientists were doing as Bruce still wouldn’t tell. They were living in a tiny rented flat for a few weeks while the work was going on. It was painted in different shades of beige, and the only interesting thing lying around the empty living room was an old, slightly beaten-up guitar, and, for some reason, at least 50 books. Not just textbooks, either.

“There is absolutely nothing to do in Roswell,” Bruce said when he saw him staring at a copy of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,_ and Rick agreed wholeheartedly. Bruce went off to cook, and Betty asked him about his skateboard, so they cleared all the books away and he did some tricks. “ _He’s allowed to skateboard in the apartment but I’m not allowed to smoke? That’s not fair,_ ” Bruce grumbled good-naturedly as he passed out bowls of pasta. They sat cross-legged on the floor because there was no table, and it was all so _weird_ and _domestic_ that Rick didn’t know if he wanted to run out, or cry, or ask to stay forever, or all three.

Betty went to do the dishes and left Bruce and Rick alone. “I have to go soon,” Rick said, reluctantly. It was half past six.

Bruce just said, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not supposed to say that,” Rick said, frowning. “You’re supposed to say it’s not that bad, or it gets better.”

“But it is that bad,” Bruce replied simply. “You’re allowed to say it’s bad, it’s happening to _you._ ” He paused for thought, and then added, “It does get better, though.”

“Yeah, if you get a _college scholarship,_ ” Rick shot back, because it was common knowledge that Bruce Banner had skipped town at 17 to go do, like, _science._ Rick was barely passing science, and he told him so.

“What are you good at?” Bruce asked. “What’s going to get you out of here?”

Rick sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him he was learning guitar, but Bruce followed his eyes to the instrument lying across the room anyway.

“Music?” Bruce asked again. Rick braced himself for a lecture, but Bruce just looked thoughtful and said, “Well, there are plenty of music scholarships, if you want to go to college.”

“No-one’s gonna give me a scholarship,” Rick said, grumpy. “I got suspended last month.”

Bruce shrugged. “I got expelled. Miracles happen.”

“Shit. How come?”

“Language,” Bruce warned, but didn’t seem actually annoyed. “I, uh, tried to build a bomb in the school’s basement. Have people finally stopped talking about it?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess. Wow. I just got in a fight.”

“That’s cool too,” Bruce promised, and grinned until Betty shouted “ _no it’s not!”_ from the kitchen and he had the grace to look sheepish. “Don’t mind Betty, she wasn’t a teenage delinquent like us.” Betty came back over, murmuring “ _it’s not something to be proud of,_ ” and pressed a kiss to the top of his curly head. Rick watched them, quiet and loving and private, and felt- hope, maybe. This man, whose name he’d lived with the last three years, had fucked up even more than he had and still ended up with a new life, a cool job, and a girlfriend who teased him and held his hand and read books with long titles.

“I’ll walk you home,” Bruce said.

They were quiet on the walk back. Rick was acutely aware that the guys who gave him shit might be able to see him walking with one of “those weird scientists” and think of even _more_ shit to give him, so he walked in surly silence and hoped Bruce would understand.

“You wanna see your old room?” He asked, when they go to the home. Bruce shook his head.

“I remember it well enough. You should scratch out my name, though, it’s yours now.”

“S’not mine. I don’t own anything. Even the board’s shared with another kid. And the guitar belongs to the home.”

Bruce stopped him. “You own everything that’s ever happened to you,” he said, looking Rick straight in the eyes as he did so. “Everything. And I know that doesn’t sound like much, not yet. But it _is_ something. It’s why I can come back here and not feel like I want to fall off the face of the Earth, because everything that happened to me here is _mine,_ so it doesn’t matter what they think. Okay?”

“I own everything that happens to me,” Rick repeated, sceptical and unsure. “What can I do with that?”

Bruce paused for a moment in thought. “Write good songs,” He said finally, “and don’t take any crap.”

“Okay.” Rick was a little spellbound. “Any more advice, Mr Miyagi?”

Bruce laughed, and pushed him gently towards the door. “Punk. Don’t get expelled.”

“I’ll stay away from bombs,” Rick promised, and then went inside. He went straight up to his room to avoid whoever was on duty that night, put down his skateboard and flung himself into the bed, feeling exhausted. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling he dragged himself up again and went over to the windowsill. _B Banner_ was carved in to the wood in childlike handwriting. Rick dug out his key and went to scratch it out, and then stopped. He added _R Jones_ underneath instead.

He saw Bruce just once more in Roswell.

 

_present day_

“Step into my office,” Rick said weakly. He opened the door back up again and let Bruce follow him up the stairs, through into their rooms with the beanbags and the desk and the half-painted mural. Bruce looked at everything appreciatively, but made no comment until Rick sat down. Rick himself was about to say something neutral, like, “ _it’s been a long time._ ”

Bruce asked, “Rick, are you scared of me?”

“Wait. Are you serious?”

Bruce shuffled on his beanbag, wrung his hands, did everything he could not to maintain eye contact. “Of course. Stupid question, I shouldn’t have-“

“Yeah,” Rick cut him off. This was the last thing he was expecting. “It is a stupid question. Course I’m not _scared_ of you. What kind of a question is that?”

Bruce looked up, a bemused expression on his face. “An obvious one?”

“I’m not avoiding you because I’m _scared_ of you,” Rick explained, because there was no point in pretending that they both didn’t know that. “I was avoiding you because I reckoned I’d be the absolute _last_ person you’d ever want to see again.”

He didn’t look any less confused. “Because you got tricked into entering a bomb testing site and nearly _died?_ Yep. How dare you.”

“Because I ruined your life!” Rick shouted back, registering a second too late that startling the guy who could turn into the real-life Hulk at will probably wasn’t the best idea. Luckily Bruce just blinked at him and Rick noticed the new lines around his eyes, in his furrowed brow.

“You ruined-“ he repeated, questioning. “Oh, no. Rick, no. That’s not what happened.”

“Like hell it isn’t. I fucked up, you had to come rescue me, and then-“

“And then I put the detonation on pause,” Bruce explained, in that soft, compassionate tone. “I was going to grab you, take you home, lecture you on never doing something that _stupidly dangerous again,_ and that would have been it. There were- for lack of a less dramatic word,” Bruce sighed, “ _saboteurs.”_

“You mean-“ Rick’s head was swimming with memories of the accident. Or _not_ an accident, apparently. “You mean they set it off anyway? Even though they knew you were there?”

Bruce nodded. “Not all of them. Just one man, a spy. He was trying to steal the serum we were working on, that we were going to test after the bomb had gone off; eh, it’s a long story.” He had an expression on his face that was so familiar to Rick as he’d said the word “spy _,_ ”that “ _what is my life”_ expression. “Is that why you’ve been doing all this? Because you thought it was your fault?”

Rick could only nod. And then he thought some more, and said: “No. Not entirely.” Because this thing, this Teen Brigade, this office and this twitter and this podcast and these _volunteers:_ it was bigger than Bruce, now. Bigger than Rick. “It’s sort of why it started. In Harlem. But it’s more than that now, I think-”

“You were in _Harlem?_ ” Bruce seemed genuinely shocked.

“Uh, yeah. Okay, Teen Brigade origins, the short version; I got hit in the head- _not by you,_ ” he added quickly, at Bruce’s sharp intake of breath, “by the other guy- the _other_ other guy, and I had to stay put in the med tent. So I started tweeting people to bring supplies and water for the nurses, and, wow, I have told this story so many times, but never like this. Um. We just wanted to help,” he finished lamely. “And we all made friends, so, that was nice. When you’re facing disasters and alien debris and shit, it’s nice to have friends around. It helps.”

“It does,” Bruce agreed. “I am so proud of you, you know.”

“Don’t, I’m blushing.”

“Seriously. All of this; you have no idea what it means to the rest of us. Steve raves about you guys.”

Rick grinned, remembering. “He took a selfie with me. Declined an interview, though.” He stopped, and looked at his backpack with the laptop in. “Hey, would you?”

“Promise not to ask me about how my pants stay on,” Bruce said seriously, “and I’m all yours.”

Rick’s grin grew even wider. “Radical.”

 

_"This has been Rick Jones, coming at you from the heart of New York City with the Teen Brigade’s favourite hero and the man behind the myth, the monster, the legend; Dr Bruce Banner. And no, there wasn’t an official poll on that, but hey- this isn’t a democracy. It’s a Twitter-ocracy. And I run the Twitter. Thanks for listening, volunteers around the globe, we salute you._

_Once again, this has been Rick Jones, and we are the Teen Brigade. Have a safe night."_

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't edited this properly because I wanted to post it while I still had wi-fi, so apologies if bits seemed clumsy. Come say hi to me/fight about Rick Jones at bunnybanner.tumblr.com. I'll love you as much as Rick loves Bruce if you leave a review, etc. Thanks for reading!


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